So, after triumphantly smashing my way through three Souls games in a row, I wasn’t going to be able to put off buying DS3 until the next Steam sale.

What I’m saying is, I bought a PC game at full price.

I have brought shame on myself and my family.

Every game thus far, I’ve tried different play styles, and my plan for DS3 was to try something completely different and go shieldless, relying on parrying and dodging to get me through.

For the record, I stuck with the plan for a good six hours and managed to claw my way to Soul Level 28 before saying “to heck with this” and strapping on a nice 100% physical damage reduction shield.

I am at least trying to stick with the parry plan. I’m not very good at it though.

It took me most of those six hours to make it to the first boss. This entry in the series makes it very hard to get your feet under you to start; stuff is very aggressive and not worth much experience, the cost of upgrades ramps up very quickly, and it’s back to unlimited respawns so there is no way to completely pacify an area.

Once I made it to that first boss, and did some jolly co-operation to help a couple of other people with him, and then did it again for myself, I started feeling like I was actually in control of the situation for the first time.

But, wow, getting to that point was seriously making me wonder whether I’d finally gotten in over my head.